


Almost and Very Nearly

by tjs_whatnot



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9667826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: On the Eve of her last day at the White House, C.J. goes to Toby to talk... repeatedly.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abluestocking](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abluestocking/gifts).



_”What do you want?”_

Instead of getting in the car, C.J. Cregg walked down the frozen Georgetown street outside Toby’s house. Her Secret Service agents closed the door of the car they had opened for her to get in and instead walked silently beside and behind her. Like always, she felt bad about the inconveniences she put them through, but she just couldn’t get in that car. She couldn’t get Toby’s question out of her head, or the moment after it. That look.

She’d heard him ask that question before, and she’d seen that look before. Once or twice in the life of their relationship she’d even given a look of her own. They _had_ had some good times, she’d been right when she said that. But he had been right too when he’d said she was acting like a woman who was being backed into a corner and she was bouncing from option to option. 

She knew this about herself. And she knew Toby knew this about her too. He’s one of the few who did. Partially because he’d been a confidante for years and years, but mostly because, from time to time he’d been one of those options. 

In the years working side by side in the White House, she had forgotten all the almosts and very nearlies of their relationship becoming something _more_...mostly forgotten. But now, that time was coming to an end, and so much had changed in those eight years, but obviously, some fundamental things hadn’t.

She lifted the collar of her coat against the chill January D.C. weather and thought back to the day she’d met Toby Ziegler all those years ago. She’d been right out of college and was working for Holland & Knight, a lobbying firm that had her in New York City working on an initiative for a clean water bill. He was the campaign manager for a district council nominee she’d forgotten the name of the moment she’d heard it, as had most of the burroughs voters. He wore a Yankees hat like a uniform and was all vim and vigor, passion and conviction.

She turned back around.

~oOo~

The doorbell rang and Toby jumped. He had grown unaccustomed to the sound of it and then to have it happen twice in one evening was baffling. That it was again a gaggle of Secret Service was even more so, he felt he was experiencing a bizarre type of deja vu. He stood back and let them search the place, again. He was going to inform them that nothing had changed in the ten minutes since last they’d checked, but their search this time didn’t take as long and he didn’t get the opportunity.

“Hey Kareem,” he opened when the agents left them alone.

She walked in, taking off her scarf. “I am _not_ bouncing.”

“You’re dribbling a bit..” He closed the door behind her. Taking her coat and throwing it over a chair, he offered her a seat before going to the kitchen to retrieve the bottle of wine she had brought earlier. He wasn’t surprised when he returned that she was still standing. He’d seen her this way before. She had something to say, or a lot of things, and she was going to need some time to ease into it.

He waited.

It wasn’t until he’d sat down, poured them both a glass and handed hers to her that she sighed and began. “I was just thinking about when we first met.”

Toby smiled. “On the What’s-His-Name campaign. You were trying to be a lobbyist.”

“I was. I got good at fighting passionately for other people’s beliefs.”

“A skill that has served you well.”

“And you?”

“Me?” Toby asked and thought about what skills he’d had back then that he’d cultivated. “I got really good at finding like-minds but a lack of direction and encouraging them to achieve greatness…” He stopped when C.J. barked out a laugh. He scowled at her and continued, “Yes, I _encourage_... in my way.”

She stopped laughing. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I remember back then, how passionate you were,it was infectious. I fed off of it. And yes, you did encourage me to articulate myself better, that passion only took you so far, you need to know the whys and hows of everything.”

He beamed. “I remember that. Remember how good you got at getting your point across in my shitty five-story walkup, over warm beer and cold pizza.”

She smiled fondly. “I remember mostly we’d start with a room full of volunteers, staffers and my co-workers, but by the end of the night, it would just be two of us, yelling and… and…” she stopped.

“I remember.”

She drained her glass. “And then Andy showed up and you dropped me like a hot potato.”

Toby frowned and reached for her glass. “That’s not exactly how I remembered it.”

“How do you remember it?”

“Your firm started giving you clients you actually cared about and you were off saving the world all over the country. I was never leaving the Eastern seaboard, we both knew that.”

“But I came back from time to time.”

“You did, and we had a lot of fun, won some causes, lost some elections, then we got a guy elected president.”

C.J. laughed. “I thought nothing would beat that time in your shitty apartment, you in your Yankees caps and ever changing facial hair and me with a bad perm and an expense account I was too frightened to use. But, that first campaign, you and me, Josh and Sam living and dying on polls and greasy food. What I wouldn’t give to have that time back.”

“Yeah? What would you do different?”

She stopped smiling. “You know what I would have done differently. On a late Thursday night in a Ramada Inn in Tulsa, I’d have gotten off the elevator with my bottle of champagne and high heels dangling from my fingers and I’d have turned left towards your room, to where we could have stayed up all night talking about campaign slogans and dream policy initiatives instead of the right to a very bad choice.”

Toby chastised himself. He should have never brought that up. She’d spent enough time regretting that night. It thankfully didn’t end up in Hoynes book and neither of them were going to write about it, it should have been forgotten by now.

“You ever wonder what would have happened if you had have made the left turn?”

C.J.’s smile was back, a bit sadder, but still. “I used to all the time, but then I tried desperately not too. It would have been too hard working with you, working _for_ you--”

“Having me work for you…”

“Yes, that too. That was all hard enough without thinking about what we _could_ have had. Not while we were there. But now?”

“Yeah?”

She reached for the bottle on the coffee table in front of them, but it was empty. She sighed. “I think about it. Think about us.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think that while it feels everything is ending, and the world and all its possibilities, its limits and its changes are presenting themselves to me asking from me things I’m not sure I could either do, or live without doing, you are my constant and my safe.”

Toby covered his heart with his hands before he opened them up and C.J. slid into them, resting her head on his shoulder.

“I should hate you a lot right now,” he said into her temple.

“Why?”

“You’re sitting here whining about all the things you could do and all the ways you can still make the world a better place and I’m heading to Camp Fed in weeks.” 

C.J. wrapped her hands around him tightly and sobbed. “I’m so sorry. It just… it doesn’t seem real to me. Toby, please reconsider the pardon.”

He bristled, but he didn’t push or let go of her. “I can’t. You know that.”

“I know.” Then she turned her face to his. “But remind me again, why can’t you?”

“You didn’t see him those last moments we shared. You didn’t see the hurt and betrayal in his face, the rage in his voice. I can’t ask when there’s a more than 50/50 chance he’d refuse. The not knowing is better than knowing that he still hates me and wishes me ill.”

“The not knowing and spending years in prison away from your children, away from… everyone.. Is better?”

He didn’t answer and they just held onto each other for a long time.

“So, as much as I like the idea that I’m your constant, your safe space, and I will _always_ be that. I don’t want you to put your life on hold for the maybe of you and I, because what we have is no maybe. It doesn’t rely on where we are and what we’re doing with other people. Go, have Danny, have your 10 billion dollar war chest to set the world to right, build that wolf-only roadway if you want--”

Laughter burst from her. And they shared a laugh before he continued. “We’ll still be us. We’ll _always_ still be us.”

She sighed. “Always.”


End file.
